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Video15 May 2026Rigs & DIYScienceHistory

A tonoscope from a cup, a balloon, a straw and some salt

STEM NOLA films a ninth-grade student demonstrating the simplest tonoscope there is, on a New Orleans television slot.

Watch on YouTube ↗STEM NOLA · STEM NOLA · 5 min

A tonoscope is a tube you sing into, with a membrane stretched over the far end and powder on the membrane. Hum a steady note and the powder arranges itself. This one is a plastic cup, a balloon for the membrane, a straw to hum through and salt for the medium — no electronics at all, because the voice is the driver.

The demonstration is by Leeyah Lavallais, a ninth grader from St. Mary's Academy, filmed for a FOX 8 New Orleans segment with host Rob Krieger. The video runs just under five minutes and stays at the level of a broadcast science slot rather than a build tutorial, so expect the phenomenon rather than the engineering.

It is a good corrective to rig envy. A voice-driven membrane is how Margaret Watts Hughes worked in the 1880s, and it still produces the effect without a speaker anywhere in the chain.

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